Curse of the Winter Kingdom

By J. A. Nichole

WARNING: This story contains violence, murder, dubious consent, and adult content not for the faint of heart. Themes include age-gap, potentially psychologically-triggering content, and an attempt at suicide.

Please read knowingly.

This is a STANDALONE, DARK, EROTIC ROMANCE.

Chapter One

“But are you devoted?” the younger palace bed-servant—a sweet young man with a curious gaze—wanted to know. He asked the question as he combed Salas’ long, current-red hair with honey-scented cleansing oils. Salas sat in a stone bath while servants attended him. An egg had been cracked over his scalp earlier, to give his tendrils strength and vitality, he knew. He’d been through the cosmetic ritual many times, and with the honey and the eggs, he could not help but to always imagine a cake being mixed over the crown of his head. A cherry one, perhaps, for his hair.

But are you devoted? Salas nearly giggled at the foolishness of the question. Devoted? Of course he was devoted. Devoted to the glamorous conditions of palace life, the silken clothes, the silly youths cracking eggs into his hair, perhaps. He was devoted to the careful steps, acts, and measures he took in order to keep it all. Was Salas devoted to the old Emperor he served in bed, exactly like the other bed-servants in the palace? It would be easier to say he was devoted to keeping the Emperor’s favor, and what it meant to have it. So the answer was perhaps as irrelevant as the question. In a way, yes.

Salas let the question hang awkwardly between them, as though the servant who’d questioned was unworthy of a response. The atmosphere stirred heavily, perhaps alluding to the possibility that he’d been insulted by the inquiry, as one does not question a priest in a chapel if they are devoted to the Goddess. Though in truth, Salas hardly cared, and was not insulted.

His lack of response made the bed servant—a palace ‘bird,’ as they were called—shrink away, as though he believed Salas was, in fact, offended, and feared the repercussions of insulting Salas. The Emperor’s personal, favorite toy. 

Salas briefly enjoyed the stir of power with the quiet, but finally, he chose to answer. The palace bird could hardly wash his hair properly if the little thing trembled while working through his roots.

“Of course I am devoted,” Salas said with a shrug, uncaring that his body language revealed how little he thought of the question. “I belong to the Emperor. I pledged myself to him and the Kingdom of Suscon, and I take that pledge to heart.” I have everything I need here, Salas added, though he kept the self-serving thought to himself. 

Salas almost felt the awe that oozed out of the attending bird. He was often asked questions by the lesser palace staff. These bed servants who served the court would have had the opportunity to try for a place by the Emperor’s side, had Salas not already seized the position. 

The birds’ ‘devotion’ to the kingdom was what kept their jealousy from turning green. Instead, with their vows to maintain decency and obedience, they were calm and curious instead of jaded. They, who had made a similar pledge to Suscon, and had been trained to be as useful as flower arrangements, did not fully comprehend the anomaly that was Salas. So the questions came. Salas, you are a bed servant, but why do you speak so much? Why do you not get in trouble for speaking? Do you love the Emperor? How did you become his favorite? Are you devoted?

The question, to foreign ears, would have sounded random. Salas, however, was nearly bored of it.

Yet the response within him that sparked was entertaining enough. Why, you ask? Because I’m not like you. I am special. 

The meanness of the inner workings of his mind kept him silent, if only because he feared his own cruelty was unattractive and would cause him to lose favor. 

It was a warm afternoon in the southern kingdom. The sun was glowing in from stone windows that would have made Salas’ bath uncomfortable if he had not asked a bird to block the light with an enormous alocasia leaf. The perks of being the Emperor’s personal bird. The other birds were ordered to wait upon him. 

Salas was taking his time readying for the event to come. It was the Emperor’s birthday party tonight, and he wanted to be a sensation.

When he was clean, he rose from the water. This elicited a small gasp from the bird who’d attended him. New to the palace, the young male servant had yet to look upon Salas’ naked form. Salas knew what the bird saw, and the reaction pleased him. He’d heard the gossip from the palace staff, as he sometimes asked them to recite the shared words back to him. You’re magnificent, they would, with a flush. You keep yourself well, they would also add, as though to ease their praise, diminish it just a bit, but Salas understood. He had a slightly larger build than most of the birds, as many were women and the men were just past the end of their adolescence. 

Salas was lean and muscular, though not enough to not endear men of the court who preferred slighter frames of figure. Instead, his body worked somewhere within a balance, 

attracting most everybody. His hair was long, feminine, his shoulders firm, masculine. A soft, pretty face, a hard, pointed jaw. The pleasant contrasts, as he was told, made it obvious why Salas was the Emperor’s favorite, as well as within the court.

Salas was towel-dried and next came the oil. There were more attendants than was normal, to befit the special occasion. He pondered what he would wear for the evening as two birds smoothed floral oils over his skin, coating it with a layer of golden shine. 

He was thinking of new ways to drape silk across his body when he noticed a presumptuous hand had been working along his groin for longer than was necessary. The oiled hand was brave as it gripped his member, slicking pressure from base to tip. Blood rushed to the area in response.

He looked down to find the bird watching his own ministrations with hooded eyes, parted lips, perhaps naive of his own audacity. Entranced in his activity, spelled by the silken feel of the Salas’ cock. 

When Salas was fully aroused, the slave then moved another hand between Salas thighs, between the swells of his ass. It would be too easy for those slim digits to breach the entrance there, slick and slim as they were, perhaps stuffing two or three at a time in a single press. But as the tips of the fingers caressed his hole, Salas spoke up.

“Stop,” he announced, sternly. 

The bird paused, his face painted with innocent confusion as he glanced up at Salas. “Do you not need to be prepared this way as well, Salas?” 

“I do,” Salas said, more gently this time. “Though I prefer to do so myself. It’s already been rinsed. Why don’t you go and grab a plug for me from my room? A pretty one. My favorite one, actually. Grab another bird to help you find it.”

The bird was frowning in disappointment, perhaps wondering if Salas was more bashful than the rumors suggested.

“To enter me is a privilege,” Salas explained, wondering why his words felt like a heavy lie on his tongue, though not feeling self-reflective enough to dwell upon the issue. “A privilege that you have not earned.” 

“To have your way with Salas,” said the Emperor, “is one of the greatest pleasures I’ve found. And once you’ve had him, your life will be ruined, for you will never want to bed anyone else again!”

Now that proclamation sounded like the lie.

Except it unfortunately was not.

The bird’s frown deepened, reshaping to a pout as though realizing for the first time a toy had been taken away from him. “You play around with the Emperor, as well as nobles of the court.”

Salas raised his brows. “Are you claiming you want to bed me, and you aren’t simply fulfilling your duties to oil and prepare me for the evening?” When the bird’s eyes widened and he seemed about to protest, Salas chuckled and stroked the youth’s cheek. “I don’t let you because…” Because I only lay with men whom I want power over. 

Are you devoted?

Salas sighed. “Run along, now! Do as you’re told.”

The bird obediently rose and left the room, tugging another servant to exit with him.

Salas rolled his shoulders, looked down at his forgotten, stiff cock with another small sigh, and went to sit by the mirror. He gestured for the bird by the window to come and help him with the cosmetics that were to follow.

The party tonight would be a satisfactory celebration. Emperor Eldron would be turning seventy. It was an age, quite frankly, Salas had not expected to see the man reach. Normally, the man’s birthdays consisted of the retellings of favored tales that shimmered with the Emperor’s glory. The Emperor’s victories over various other kingdoms, of strong trade agreements that strengthened the land, of witty feats from his days of youth; these would all be focused topics for the evening, more so now with the dawn of a new decade. 

There was one story, of course, that would be repeated more than others: Emperor Eldron’s victory that caused the downfall of the Northern Kingdom. It was the Kingdom of Diagor, the Southern Kingdom’s greatest enemy, that had received the consequences of Eldron’s reprisal. Diagor had passed through the northern Faelands to attack Suscon’s border, and in return, Eldron had ruthlessly raided Diagor, then had the Northern King, King Malvock, killed. To make sure the North could never rise again, he’d gone to a jinx, a wish-granting fae creature, in order to obtain a wish. The Emperor had wished for a fatal curse to be placed over the Northern land, affecting the people. Turned them into beasts. They’d lived as deranged animals until the curse, apparently, killed them. Not much news trailed in from the North, but the ruined kingdom would be talked about all the same tonight over wine and olives.

Salas was thinking about honey cakes once more when the birds returned with the plug he’d sent for. He’d already rouged his cheeks and lips, pinned gold trinkets into his hair, and the plug would be the last of his preparations.

It was a golden phallus, absurdly gaudy for what it was, and Salas liked the contrast between material and use. The small handle gleamed with a round, red stone that was far too decadent to belong on the illicit tool. It was the type of jewel that should be set into a chained necklace and to be worn on portrait day. It belonged on a crown.

Salas grinned when he grasped it.

He was about to work it inside himself, but then remembered his earlier encounter with the bird and glanced over thoughtfully. “Well?” he asked the palace slave, who was staring at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Would you like to put it in me?”